Partners in Crime
by AquaEclipse
Summary: 'Hermes stared at the fountain. "I'll give you a list of my children. There's a boy in Wisconsin. Two girls in Los Angeles. A few others. Will you see that they get to camp?" "I promise," I said. "And I won't forget."' Percy gave the list to Camp Half-Blood. A month later, Alice Miyazawa and Julia Feingold, L.A, learnt the truth about their father(s). Post-TLO. Canon-complaint.
1. Alice Miyazawa–Give It Up For My Sister!

**Hello, I'm back again, and this time, I want to focus more on the sideliners. And thus I tell you of my speculations for Alice and Julia, daughters of Hermes. It was also mentioned that Hermes had two daughters in L.A. and a son in Wisconsin in _The Last Olympian_, so I wanted to explore some of these brief moments and references. And... here we go!**

**Also bear in mind that the timeline is moved a little forward to accommodate the canonical anachronisms.**

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**Alice Miyazawa – Give It Up For My Sister!**

The clock was ticking down fast to 11:58, just two minutes before lunch break. Their Math teacher, Miss Belcher, was still rambling on and on about… whatever she was on about. The teacher's pets were dutifully scribbling down everything that spouted from their master's mouth. Other kids were snoozing, daydreaming, or playing the most hit games of the year on their phones. She looked down at her open textbook, and noticed she had absent-mindedly doodled the image of two serpents on a pole over diagram Miss Belcher had previously claimed would be on an upcoming test, while said teacher was lecturing. Oh well, she could always talk the teachers into giving her – and her best friend, i.e. sister in all but blood, for good measure – a decent enough grade to move on to the next year at Goldwood Middle School, as she always had.

Speaking of her best friend, Julia turned around to her and winked, grinning that impish smirk that she saw every time she looked in the mirror before school. It was a bit odd that they managed to perfect identical smirks and other facial expressions, but she had learnt not to question it since the time they snuck into the closed candy store and stole all the Mentos there. If the security footage didn't catch them, then they knew it had to be some sort of miracle involved in their lives.

Her eyes zoomed up to the clock again, and her heart lurched as she almost missed the countdown. _San, ni, ichi–!_

The obnoxiously catchy tune of _Baby_ boomed from the overhead loudspeakers. A few of the girls in the classroom screamed out the lyrics alongside Justin Bieber. Julia swiped the untouched earphones of the annoying Prep Caleigh Scully that sat next to her, in the middle of the chaos. All the other kids covered their ears as the earworm snuck into their minds again. Even Miss Belcher had stopped talking to shield her ears from the noise blasting into – and scarring – the eardrums of the denizens of Goldwood.

Within practically no time at all, the lunch bell rang, and nearly everyone in the classroom fled, desperate to get away from any place on the campus with connections to the intercom system. Miss Belcher, however, didn't budge. "Miss Miyazawa–" she winced as her name was butchered by her wheezy voice, "please remain behind, I must speak to you. The rest of you, off you go."

The shrill lunch bell continued to reverberate in her head as she just stood in her seat, brown gaze meeting cold violet. Did Miss Belcher know she was the one to rig the intercom while Julia trashed the school office and made off with all their stationery? Her instincts screamed at her to run with the rest of the class, even if it mean having to listen to Caleigh Scully taunt her for being an immigrant (as if _her ancestors_ weren't immigrants!), but her _okaa-san_ had taught her everything she knew and even _she_ didn't dare disobey a teacher's direct orders (provided they weren't too unreasonable, of course).

She exchanged glances with Julia, who nodded in response, then cautiously retreated from the room, but left the door open behind her. She continued to perch on her desk, but was prepared to run at first notice, honed by years of training in Track and Field.

Miss Belcher walked closer to her, staring at her in the eyes without so much of a blink, until they were right in front of each other. A _CLANG_ rang out as the teacher's knee knocked at the desk. She forced herself to continue locking her gaze with the teacher's, with fiery ginger hair framing her target's pale face and clothes that would most certainly have her dress-coded were she a student at the school. She could have graduated just a few years ago and was taking advantage of the freedom, but Julia hadn't found any inkling of a Belladonna Belcher in the school records (legitimately, of course, she was correspondent for the School Newspaper), despite her claims of being a recent graduate.

"Look at me, Alice Miyazawa." Her voice was deliberately sweet and yet sharp like a chef's knife, cutting right through her and exposing her very soul – so unlike her usual wheezing tones. "Tell me, young half-blood, are you proud of the things your brother has done?" She wasn't very surprised by the 'half-blood' claim, having a white father (or so she was told and continually mocked for), but her eyebrows still shot upward like a rocket at the question.

"Brother?" The word inadvertently slipped from her mouth. Her brother? She had a _brother_? The girl with a disowned immigrant single mother, who worked day and night in the media, had a _brother_?

Miss Belcher continued as if she had said nothing at all. "That Castellan boy," she scoffed as if addressing dog droppings on her boots, "had the nerve to _betray_ our master last month, and since my sisters weren't given the chance to tear his _pathetic_ body apart, we settled for devouring the rest of you as collateral damage instead."

A million questions rushed through her mind. _What 'Castellan'? What 'master'? I'd assume your so-called master is your boss but isn't that the principal – wait, "devour" as in "consume" and "eat"? Who are you and what are you talking about? Why didn't the principal notice that he hired a cannibal? Why don't American classrooms have a sasumata like back in _Nihon_?_

"However," the possibly-not-a-teacher paused, giving her a toothy grin, "_if_ you confess to your brother's sins in his stead, I _might_ just spare your life – _eh, forget that_," she then proceeded to contradict herself, "I'll just make your death quick and painless, unlike what that Jermaine Donson got.

Alice's mind whirred in realization. Jerry Donson, a senior in the high school section of the institute, who was rumoured to have done… questionable things to his female classmates and a bully whose name was only whispered in the hallways, as though saying it at a normal volume would result in a one-way trip to the ninth circle of Hell, had disappeared a week into the school year, nowhere to be found. His locker was left untouched and his desk at homeroom was messy as usual, as though he only left for the restroom and never returned to his seat.

Then her mind halted. _DEATH? ME?!_

"What do you mean, ma'am?" she feigned innocence. The last thing this cannibal could know was that she understood the implications behind her statement.

As the teacher (which she probably was _not_) continued to speak, her mind fogged over. She could only see a gleam of triumph in Miss Belcher's eyes, which were dimly glowing in the firelight – _CRASH!_

Miss Belcher's head turned, and her hypnotic gaze faded as a bulky, high school-aged girl burst into the room, sending a few desks flying as she leapt over them. She was brandishing a huge spear, tip crackling with electrical power. A long, bronze blade hung from her belt. When the effects of hypnotism finally faded, her head turned to Miss Belcher and her jaw dropped. Her flowing locks had turned into real, flickering flames. Her eyes were just as cold and slightly maniacal as… before the transformation, but they were red like freshly spilled blood. The teacher – no, _cannibal_ – had leapt out of her knee-high boots, revealing a bronze prosthetic right leg and a furry donkey's leg, complete with hoof, substituting her left.

"_What the heck is going on?_" The words tumbled out in Japanese without thinking. The newcomer only glanced at her without saying anything, then commanded, "Run, kid! I'll take care of the _empousa_!"

Alice had no idea what an _empousa_ was, but she bolted, putting all her training into fleeing the fanged monstrosity as a desk burst into flames behind her. She could only hope the big girl knew what she was doing.

Further down the hallway, she found Julia shouting to a Hispanic boy with a scabbard(?!) across his back, and another boy standing next to the broken fire alarm 'break glass' station. Both boys shared upturned eyebrows and a familiar gleam in their eyes (even though she had never seen them before), as if their only purpose there was to wreak havoc on the campus.

Suddenly, Julia turned to her again, and immediately asked, "_Dō shita no?_"

"_My teacher says she wants to eat me, then a girl charged in with a freaking spear and started to fight – the _empousa_, she called it…_" the words spilled rapidly out of her mouth, her brain still not switched back into Speak English mode, especially when her best friend asked her what had happened in her native tongue. (She still suspected that her mother had been giving Julia lessons since they befriended each other when they were five.)

The boy next to the 'break glass station' put his hands on her shoulders, such that she eventually stopped shaking (which she didn't notice). His smile turned more genuine. "_It's okay. I'm sure Clarisse can take care of the _empousa_,_" he surprisingly responded in the same language. (_Does he take Japanese in high school? Where did he learn to speak in _Nihongo_?_) "My name is Cecil. I'm here to take you to a safe place."

"A safe place?" Her eyes shifted from the smoke emerging from the open doorway. Miss Belcher – the _empousa_ – had probably set the teacher's desk on fire with her flaming hair or something like that. Considering how closely the desks were packed together in the room… she had no doubt the school would be called out for creating such a fire hazard. _Maybe that's why this guy – Cecil – pressed the fire alarm._

"Listen," Cecil continued. "Have you ever seen… _strange_ things happen to and around you? Strange… _people_, especially those that want to kill you?" A hazy memory of a boy in their class last year, Parker Linden, popped up in her brain. He had an unusual leg-affecting disease, and disappeared sometime after summer break. And then there were the carnivorous pigeons in San Francisco and the eight-foot tall baseball coach that almost swung her head off with an iron bat when she tried out for the school team… (He didn't even get fired!)

"Weird events with no reasonable explanation… like that earthquake four years ago?" _WHAT?!_

"The earthquake?" she vaguely recalled watching the news broadcast, when some mad kidnapper dueled his teenaged victim and got away after hitting a gas main just after the disaster, leaving the Santa Monica beach area devastated with fires and debris. "That earthquake – and the kidnapping incident with Percy Jackson – _that _has something to do with _this_?" She gestured at the blaring fire alarm and the fight in the classroom.

"It has everything to do with 'this'," confirmed the guy with the scabbard, with an almost wistful smile. A moment later, the crackling of electricity sizzled… something living, and Scabbard Guy pulled out a bronze sword(!) in response. "Let's hope _Clarisa_ doesn't need backup, 'cos if she does, we're kinda screwed."

The large girl – "Clarisse" – appeared and gruffly told everyone, peering from the doorway. "Let's get going before the mortals or more monsters show up. You got the newbies, Chris, Markowitz?"

"Yeah, _Clarisa_, we got –" Scabbard Guy – _Chris?_ – replied, before being rudely interrupted with a rough "excuse me?"

That was when Julia reached out and stuck Chris' sword (_sheesh, she's fast!_) into the source of the voice that gave Alice nightmares for weeks. The coach's eyes rolled back and he exploded into a pile of dust.

"A Laistrygonian too? Sh!t, we'd better get outta here fast." Chris beckoned for them to follow him, and not a couple of minutes later, they had hopped into a white van with the words _Delphi Strawberry Service_ printed on the side. She reckoned they weren't kidnappers if they used such a conspicuous van for transportation.

"Nice moves, other girl," Clarisse told Julia before she slammed the driver's door shut, and within two minutes, they were on the road.

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**DATE OF WRITING: 9-13 February 2020**

**DATE OF EDITING: 24 & 27 February 2020**

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**I actually have no idea how American schools work and so everything is credited to research. I hope I did a decent job at portraying that.  
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**Cecil's linguistic abilities are credited to _The Story of Cecil_ by Erikthonius (AO3).  
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**I feel like Clarisse would have definitely softened up after the events of BotL and TLO. She's still gruff and mean on the outside, and she's not the best with kids, but she's grown up since TLT and would be heading off to college the next year, so she probably would have matured a bit (at least).**

**I'll work on Julia's perspective if I get five reviews/comments (combined across both sites) on this fic! Give me some ideas/headcanons if you don't mind.  
**


	2. Julia Feingold–I Know My Kingdom Awaits

**I literally started writing this chapter as soon as I got my fifth review/comment, and ending up working on it all day, from about maybe half an hour before noon (I woke up less than an hour before noon and nearly overslept) to nearly midnight, not including the time when I was actually paying attention in class and doing homework for most of the afternoon.**

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**Julia Feingold – I Know My Kingdom Awaits**

Julia knew that there were three certainties in her life –

1\. She was Julia Feingold, fatherless only child of Eve Feingold, resident of Los Angeles;

2\. Her sister-in-all-but-blood was Alice Miyazawa, fatherless only child of Mari Miyazawa, fellow resident of L.A;

3\. She always had the uncanny ability to speak different languages easily – which made the additional language classes a breeze, navigate without ever looking at a map, and bypass security measures without batting an eye… which her mother had said was G*d's gift to her.

Yet nothing had prepared her for her life turning upside down when a fire started in their homeroom and her sister came charging out, muttering about their Math teacher being a cannibalistic nutjob. Then Coach Butcher tried to murder her sister again, so she subconsciously ripped a sword(!) from the hands from an older boy and stabbed him to dust – no body left behind. And now they were on a strawberry farm van heading east with said older boy and two others, all of whom were wearing obnoxiously bright orange T-shirts. What a time to be alive.

"Okay, how do I say this…" murmured the smaller boy of the two, only to be interrupted by the owner of the sword, who had since put said sword back in his scabbard, "the gods are real. I mean, the Greek gods." _What._

"B-but isn't there only one… _G-O-D_?" she stuttered out. She glanced at Alice – _please, tell me, there can't be more than one G*d, they say He's angry that the people of the olden days didn't give up on polytheistic cults, please tell me that this isn't some mad pagan cult_ – but her sister only gave a solemn nod.

"We don't talk about the metaphysical G-O-D," the smaller boy – Cecil – explained, "though this isn't denying that He doesn't exist. _For all we know, He could have created the gods and channels his power through them._" Hmm, that made a bit more sense, but…

"Anyway," continued the other boy – _Chris, was it?_ – "they exist, flaws and all, and move with Western civilization. Since America's the center of Western civilization right now, they're here and living on the new Mount Olympus – the Empire State Building."

"E-excuse me, but you mean the Empire State Building is… a mountain in Greece?" Alice questioned incredulously. Julia then tried to envision those pictures in her World History textbook hanging off the Empire State Building like those images of King Kong. The mental picture almost made her laugh out loud. "Yeah, that's kind of ridiculous to think about."

"Not exactly, we mean like, a whole other dimension connected to Earth with the building," Chris clarified. "The elevator, to be precise."

"Moving on, you guys heard about the so-called myths about the gods having kids with mortals?"

She shared a glance with her sister, remembering that time they watched Disney's _Hercules_ during a sleepover. "Yeah, but Hercules' mom _wasn't _Hera, right?"

"Spot on," Cecil continued, smirking, probably mentally recounting a prank that involved the animated movie. "His mom was a mortal, and the gods' tradition of having kids with mortals didn't stop there. They've been doing that all through history."

"What Markowitz means to tell you godly crotch goblins is that you're demigods, or half-bloods – children of gods," the girl driving the van – Clarisse – bluntly stated from the driver's seat. "One of your parents is mortal, and the other is a god – or goddess. We're taking you to Camp Half-Blood, in New York, where you learn to protect yourself from monsters like that _empousa_ you had for a teacher and the Laistrygonian coach. I'm a daughter of Ares, and these two are Hermes' boys."

"There's supposed to be a satyr looking out for you two though," Chris frowned at the two girls, then proceeded to explain, "a half-man, half-goat. Usually undercover with a cap and something wrong with their legs… and some plant-related name."

"A guy called Parker Linden was in our class last year," Alice recalled. Julia then added, face twisting into a frown, "But he didn't show up this year."

"Dammit," Clarisse muttered from the front. "Your protector died in the war and we forgot to send a new one. He was a good guy. Kind of kooky, but a good guy."

"Speaking of a war, do you guys happen to know a guy called Castellan? Miss Belcher said he betrayed their master last month and wants to eat his siblings as collateral damage… me included." Alice kept on recounting, only for the three older demigods to flinch and Chris to go pale.

"He meant our brother, Luke Castellan," Chris disclosed, eyes widening into some form of Thousand-Yard Stare. "He was possessed by Kronos, the Titan of time, who was trying to overthrow his kids' reign on Olympus, but Luke sacrificed himself to stop him…" He trailed off, obviously not wanting to add more details.

"We fought the Titans for three days in Manhattan. We lost a lot of good people there," added Clarisse from the front. A moment of silence then filled the van, before Clarisse continued driving with vigour, as though she was trying to get them to New York faster.

"Well, at least we know _your_ godly parent, sis, as she was after you," Cecil put a hand on her sister's shoulder. She only barely contained the flare of envy as he continued, "Welcome to the Hermes brood."

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The rest of the journey mainly consisted of games of Cards Against Olympus, Mythomagic (in which all of them sucked, which prompted Cecil to complain about how the best player of the game refused to stick around Camp for more than a few hours), and Uno; with occasional breaks for food and restroom usage. (They refused to stop in Las Vegas since they were forewarned there was a whack Hotel that messed with people's sense of time in its vicinity.)

The van ran into a gang of six-armed giants wearing nothing but loincloths (gross, but she had a feeling this wouldn't be the grossest thing she'd see as a demigod) in Colorado, but a few precise sword strikes from the boys caused them to melt into clay stains on the side of the road. In Nebraska, a group of grain spirits tried to drag Chris off, which then got turned to piles of cornflakes when Clarisse sent her electric spear in their direction.

As the demigods pulled into Iowa, a huge gryphon (or so the others said it was) pulled the van into a merry chase across the state that the group only eluded with road directions from Julia and Chris. A while later, they passed the state border into Wisconsin, where they picked up an older, taciturn teenager called Ryker, who was on the run from some snake women – Scythian _dracanae_.

They stopped by Chicago for their break, where they were ambushed by a pack of bear-sized mastiffs when getting lunch, which the citizens mistook for several large, black vans blocking up the road for no particular reason (which they also didn't seem especially mad about, other than a lot of grumbling). Eventually, they were attacked by demon pigeons again (she was with Alice when Auntie Mari went to interview some celebrity in San Fran that time), which they had Alice scare off with her rendition of _Let It Go_. (Julia wondered if it was worth it if life as a demigod was so stressful.)

When they finally reached Half-Blood Hill, the van was, once again, chased, but this time by arm-length, crowned snakes. "Okay, we gotta run, run, run, _run_!"

Alice sped off, with Ryker barely behind. Julia didn't find the snakes particularly scary, but she ran nonetheless as the three older, more experienced Campers fought the serpents. As soon as the demigods crossed the border, though, a hologram of a winged golden staff entwined with a pair of snakes – _like what Alice drew in her book, goodness, was that just a few days ago?_ – appeared above Alice's and Ryker's heads.

"Congrats on getting Claimed," a stocky blond with sad purple – _purple! Like… the color of grapes!_ – eyes commented as he manipulated the surrounding plants to strangle the serpents. Her eyebrow quirked in confusion. _Why are you looking at me too? Did one of those demon pigeons just stop by and take a dump on my head or something?_

"Nice to know you two are one of us as well," Cecil pointed out, then he turned to the violet-eyed guy. "Hey, Pollux. How's it going at Camp?"

"Fine. We lost Capture the Flag though. Say, what are these kids' names?"

"Alice Miyazawa here. Hello, everyone!" her sister gave the gathering crowd of demigods – nearly all of whom were wearing those bright orange T-shirts, seriously, that alone would attract monsters without considering the scent – a friendly little wave.

"My name is Ryker… Ryker Bunschoten."

"…Wait, Bunschoten, as in Marvin Bunschoten, that televangelist that died in the police chase in his 'Lamborghini for the Lord'?"

"Rumor says he ended up in the Fields of Punishment… I heard Percy mention it after his quest to the Underworld."

"Raymond! Don't be so blunt! His father literally just died a few years ago!"

Ryker began to look increasingly uncomfortable at the gossiping Campers. "I'd rather not talk about it, but..."

Julia decided to spare him from humiliation due to who his mortal parent was (just because he was the son of a… SOB didn't mean he wasn't a decent guy himself) by asking a stupid question. "I'm Julia Feingold, and what did you mean by 'Claimed'?"

"It means your godly parent sent a sign to basically say, 'yeah, I made this kid'," Chris replied wryly. She wondered why he didn't seem very happy about that, but she nodded. "A caduceus showed up above your heads, which means at least Father had the sense to Claim you three ASAP."

She nodded again, before the words began to settle in. _Chris' father… as in Hermes… as in Alice's father… as in _my_ father?_ She blinked. Her worldview had basically shattered in the span of a few days, but at least she had a little time to consolidate her learning about the truth about herself:

1\. She was Julia Feingold, demigod daughter of Eve Feingold and Hermes, resident of Los Angeles but staying in New York;

2\. Her sister _by godly blood_ was Alice Miyazawa, demigod daughter of Mari Miyazawa and Hermes, fellow resident of L.A but also staying in New York;

3\. She always had the uncanny ability to speak different languages easily – which made the additional language classes a breeze, navigate without ever looking at a map, and bypass security measures without batting an eye… which her mother had said was G*d's gift to her… which probably counted as the perks of being the daughter of an actual Greek deity.

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That night, Julia turned to Alice in their bunk (they had to share a bed for the night since one of the Ares kids – Clarisse's siblings – blew up several minor deities' cabins and their residents had to sleep in the Hermes cabin until they were fixed). "Hey… if we're both daughters of Hermes, does that make us sisters by… what's the word… _ichor_? Can we tell the teachers we're _real_ sisters now?"

"Yeah, I think that counts," her sister by _ichor_ whispered back, and eventually, both sisters drifted off to the lands of Morpheus in peace.

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**DATE OF WRITING: 18 March 2020**

**DATE OF EDITING: 18-19 March 2020**

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**That rationalization I made for the co-existence of all sorts of pantheons in the Riordanverse, coupled with Samirah's beliefs and thoughts on the gods, is my interpretation for the religious background in the Riordanverse, since I went to a Christian (Protestant) primary school and went through a religious phase when I was younger, and now still want to try to make peace between the conflict between science and religion. (I am currently agnostic-Christian.)**

**For the record, some of the Campers, including Cecil, still remember li'l Nico and his Mythomagic phase back in ****_The Titan's Curse_****.**

**According to my research, Chicago has among the worst traffic in public. And yes, I did look up car routes between L.A and NYC to write this fic. You're welcome.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my take on the Hermes' sisters backstory, since no one talks about them and as we see from Hestia and Hades, the ones left behind tend to be the most fascinating ones. If you have any suggestions and headcanons for any characters, especially those with little to nothing given about their backgrounds, please send them in and I'll possibly try to compile a fic about them or something. Until next time!**

**~Aqua**

**UPDATE: Upon rereading TLT, I have discovered that the televangelist is from Upstate New York, not Wisconsin. I admit that this was an error on my part, but to be honest, where the asshole was from is not important. Let's just say that he was divorced and his ex-wife moved to Wisconsin with Ryker.**


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